How far can the peer-to-peer revolution be pushed? It’s time we start to speculate, because history is moving fast. We need to dislodge from our minds our embedded sense of what’s possible.

Right now, we can experience a form of commercial relationship that was unknown just a decade ago. If you need a ride in a major city, you can pull up the smartphone app for Uber or Lyft and have a car arrive in minutes. It’s amazing to users because they get their first taste of what consumer service in taxis really feels like. It’s luxury at a reasonable price.

If your sink is leaking, you can click TaskRabbit. If you need a place to stay, you can count on Airbnb. In Manhattan, you can depend on WunWun to deliver just about anything to your door, from toothpaste to a new desktop computer. If you have a skill and need a job, or need to hire someone, you can go to oDesk or eLance and post a job you can do or a job you need done. If you grow food or make great local dishes, you can post at a place like credibles.co and find a prepaid customer base.

These are the technologies of the peer-to-peer or sharing economy. You can be a producer, a consumer, or both. It’s a different model — one characterized by the word “equipotency,” meaning that the power to buy and sell is widely distributed throughout the population. It’s made possible through technology.

The emergence of the app economy — an emergent order not created by government or legislation — has enabled these developments, and they are changing the world.

These technologies are not temporary. They cannot and will not be uninvented. On the contrary, they will continue to develop and expand in both sophistication and in geographic relevance. This is what happens when technology is especially useful. Whether it is the horseshoe of the Middle Ages or the distributed networks of our time, when an innovation so dramatically improves our lives, it changes the course of history. This is what is happening in our time.

The applications of these P2P networks are enormously surprising. The biggest surprise in my own lifetime is how they have been employed to make payment systems P2P — no longer based on third-party trust — through what’s called the blockchain. The blockchain can commodify and title any bundle of information and make it transferable, with timestamps, in a way that cannot be forged, all at nearly zero cost.

An offshoot of blockchain-distributed technology has been the invention of a private currency. For half a century, it has been a dream of theorists who saw that taking money out of government hands would do more for prosperity and peace than any single other step.

The theorists dreamed, but they didn’t have the tools. They hadn’t been invented yet. Now that the tools exist, the result is bitcoin, which gives rise to the hope that we have the makings of a new international currency managed entirely by the private sector and the global market system.

These new P2P systems have connected the world like never before. They hold out the prospect of unleashing unprecedented human energy and the creativity that comes with it. They give billions of people a chance to integrate themselves into the worldwide division of labor from which they have thus far been excluded.

With 3-D printing and computer-aided design files distributed on digital networks, more people have access to become their own manufacturers. These same people can be designers and distribute the results to the world. Such a system cuts out every barrier that stands between people and their material aspirations — barriers such as product regulation, patents, and excise taxes.

It’s time that we begin to expect the unexpected. What else is possible?

Entrepreneurs are already experimenting with an Uber model of delivering some form of health care online. In some areas, they will bring a nurse to you to give you a flu shot. Other health services are on the way, causing some to speculate on the return to at-home medical visits paid out of pocket (rather than via insurance).

What does this innovation do for centralist solutions like Obamacare? It changes the entire dynamic of service provision. The medical establishment is already protesting that this consumer-based, one-off service approach runs contrary to primary and preventive care — a critique that fails to consider that there is no reason why P2P technology can’t provide such care.

How much can things change? To what extent will they affect the structure of our political lives? This is where matters get really interesting. A feature of P2P is the gradual elimination of third parties as agents who stand between individuals and their desire to cooperate one to one. We use such third parties because we believe we need them. Credit card companies serve a need. Banks serve a need. Large-scale corporations serve a need.

One theory holds that the State exists to do for us what we can’t do for ourselves. It’s the ultimate third-party provider. We elect people to serve as our representatives, and they bring our voices to the business of government so that we can get the services we want. That’s the idea, anyway.

But once government gets the power to do things, it expands its power in the interest of the ruling elite. The taxicab monopoly was no more necessary than the government postal service, but the growth of P2P technology has increasingly exposed the reality of how unnecessary the State as a third-party mediator really is. The post office is being pushed into obsolescence. It’s hard to see how the municipal taxi monopoly can survive a competitive contest with P2P technology systems.

Policing is an example of a service that people think is absolutely necessary. The old perception is that government needs to provide this service because most people cannot do it for themselves. But what if policing, too, could employ P2P technology?

What if, when there is a threat, whether to you or to others, you could open an app on your phone and call the private police immediately? You can imagine how such a technology could learn to filter out static and discern threat level based on algorithms and immediately supplied video evidence. We already see the first attempts in this direction with the Peacekeeper app.

Rather than a tax-funded system that has become a threat to the innocent as much as the guilty, we would have a system rooted in consumer service. It might be similar to the private security systems used by all businesses today, except it would apply to individuals. It would survive not through taxation but subscription — voluntary and noncoercive.

How much further can we take this? Can courts and laws themselves be ported to the online world, using the blockchain for verifying contracts, managing conflicts, and even issuing securities? The large retailer Overstock.com is experimenting with this idea — not for ideological reasons but simply because such systems work better.

And here we find the most compelling case for optimism for the cause of human liberty. These technologies are emerging from within the private sector, not from government. They work better to serve human needs than the public-sector alternative. Their use and their growth depend not on ideological conversion but on their capacity to serve universal human needs.

The ground really is shifting beneath our feet, despite all odds. It is still an age of leviathan. But based on technology and the incredible creativity of entrepreneurs, that leviathan no longer seems like a permanent feature of the world.

More from LibertyLOL:

How You, and You Alone, Can Build Liberty

When people first discover the wonderful, beautiful, glorious world of liberty – the ideas, the tradition, the possibilities – they tend to fall into a trap. They note that governments are a main enemy. They never stop violating our rights. Government are supported by mass numbers of people. Those people acquiesce in the loss of rights and therefore the diminution of prosperity.

We can choose the path of despair, or we can take what we have learned and start taking control. The lens of liberty reveals tremendous evil in the world that doesn’t need to exist: restrictions, wars, poverty, despair, suffering. Looking at all this can be depressing, to say the least. And that turns to anger: why, oh why, won’t governments stop doing evil things and just let people be free?

Thus does the initial exuberance of having discovered good ideas turn dark. After all, if only government change is the answer, and I have no real power to change that government, what is my life worth? What is this body of ideas worth?

This is a tragic turn. What’s more, it is wholly unnecessary. As it turns out, change is within our grasp. It all comes down to how we live our lives and how we think about our place within the social and political structures that surround us. We can choose the path of despair, or we can take what we have learned and start taking control. We can acquiesce to oppression or we can do something about it within the realm that we do control: which is our own lives. Here we find our source of hope.

This is why I’m super excited about the new book from The Atlas Network and Students for Liberty. It is called Self-Control or State Control? You Decide. It is edited with two chapters by the brilliant Tom G. Palmer. It has contributions on policy, psychology, sociology, law, and so much more. But here is what makes this book different: it is focused on you and what you can do to build a free society. It is practical, achievable, realizable, doable. And it makes an enormous contribution to improving your life, right now, and, by extension, making the world a better place.

To get a flavor of what I mean, consider the opening from Palmer:

Who am I? What is freedom and how do I achieve it? What is a good life and how do I achieve that? How do I live the life of a free and responsible person? How am I related to others? How should I behave and how should I expect others to behave? For what am I responsible and for what not?

Should some people use force to control others? How does control through the state function and what are its effects? What is self-control, what are its benefits and its costs, and how do I achieve it?

Young people may be especially likely to pose those questions, but those questions are not only for youth—they’re for every stage of life.

They’re what this short book is about. Such questions aren’t topics only for professors of ethics and metaphysics; they’re questions for every thinking person. They’re questions for you. Moreover, understanding freedom and responsibility involves much more than some narrow intellectual specialization; serious thought on those questions must also draw on economics and history and psychology and neuroscience and sociology and art and spirituality and so much more. You’ll find all of that in the book in your hands.

The ideas in this book can help you to live a happier life—to be a better friend, co-worker, student, family member, citizen, thinker, businessperson, in short: to be a better person. You can achieve a life of freedom. Freedom is not aimless irresponsibility, but is inseparable from responsibility. Grasping both is an adventure, an act worthy of a human being.

FEE is pleased to make this book available to you as a free download.

And let me add something else here that is extremely important. The Atlas Network and Students for Liberty have embraced Creative Commons. That means: no more fear of sharing. No more regulatory restrictions. No more publishing monopolies. This book is for the whole world.

This is a very beautiful thing. And the license they have adopted is the most liberal: you only need to attribute the source. Otherwise you are free to share.

Please help me by distributing this great book to the world, and thereby spreading the hope of liberty to the multitudes.

More from LibertyLOL:

Have you read Kurt Vonnegut's short story Harrison Bergeron? It's an eerily brilliant short story which takes about 10 minutes to read. It was also made into a move in 1995 (watch for free below).
The book is set in a world where smarter, stronger, and prettier people are required to wear 'handicaps' to make sure that everyone is equal.
'Equality' is the norm and 'Competition' in any sense is punished. People are forced to wear masks to cultivate equality among the ugly and the beautiful.

A boy named Harrison who is superior to all others decides to flaunt it. The story shows the dilemma and confusion of his parents who have lived in this world for too long to take notice.

If you enjoyed the thought-provoking ideas of Orwell's 1984, you might enjoy this quick read. Download at the link above or read the embedded document below.

The movie is worth a watch as well though it never made mainstream and quite few people have ever even heard of it. You can stream it on YouTube here:

The cast of this movie includes Sean Austin (Rudy and Lord of the Rings), Howie Mandel, Christopher Plummer (National Treasure and A Beautiful Mind) and Emmanuelle Chriqui. These are well known talented actors with long credits lists. This movie also won multiple Gemini Awards including Best Direction, Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, and Best Production Design or Art Direction.

"Watch this movie and as you do remember that everything in movies and stories must be adapted to modern times. With that in mind, as you watch consider…

The bands (or handicaps) we have today, are not physical but “information bands”, radio, TV, wifi. Pop culture has dropped the intelligence of the average person while more information is available then ever.

The goal in schools in the movie is to make every student equal. We call it common core today. In fact, the architects of common core have said it is intended to “remove the advantage” some children have due to things like stable families.

When people in this movie, children are considered to have “not fit in” they are sent to the doctor for help.

The name of the recession following the cold war that NEVER REALLY ENDS is called THE GREAT RECESSION, which was the name given to the recession of 2008, which I say hasn’t ended, again the movie was made in 1995.

Personally I feel this movie should be seen by every American, uploaded to every and any video site, etc. Sure many have their bands adjusted way too high to comprehend it, but perhaps what we need are some modern day “head houses” to inspire a positive insurrection vs. the disastrous revolution predicted in this movie.

What is a head house you ask? Watch the movie to find out."

Here are some of the most chilling lines from the movie as we look at our future, remember this is from a 1960s novel adopted into a 1995 movie.

John Klaxon – “Television, well, it is the thread that holds together the fabric of our society”.

John Klaxon – “Every time I listen to great music or watch a great film, I know society will never produce another one.

Harrison – “I know the [new] constitution says its the responsibility of government to render all people equal”

John Klaxon [Speaking about Executions on Television] – Oh majority of those are reruns, we don’t advertise the fact it would hurt the ratings, and we want people to watch, for the deterrent value.

Harrison’s Teacher – I am going to recommend to your parents that they take you to see Dr. Eisenstock. You know four years ago when I started teaching, my pupils had the second highest academic scores in the state. I was very nearly fired, he altered me tremendously.

And Possibly the most chilling exchange with the year 2018 changed to say 2028, only off by say 10 years.

Teacher – “What do we call the period after the end of the cold war” – Harrison – “The Great Recession” – Teacher – “And what made this recession different from all recessions before it” Jeanie – “It never really ended, it just kept going“.

Teacher – “Why?” ..Class doesn’t know.. Teacher – “Harrison?” – Harrison – “Well in all previous recessions once the economy bottomed out and production increased, unemployment decreased. Um, but in the great recession because of new and improved technologies, fewer and fewer workers were required in all sectors. With so many people forced from their jobs, the traditional economic recovery was impossible.

Teacher – Exactly by the year 2018 only 15% of the population had jobs. America was divided into two camps. A highly skilled and prosperous elite and an unemployed destitute majority. What happened next, Garth?”

Garth – “Well the people who didn’t have jobs were very unhappy. And they started making trouble. Like they bombed buildings and had riots and killed people and stuff.

Teacher – “Right and that was the beginning of what we now know as?” – Class – “The Second American Revolution”

Teacher – “Right and we’ll stop there for today”.

More from LibertyLOL:

This is a follow up to a recent post which discussed the effects of an FDA-granted monopoly to Mylan, the manufacturer of Epipens.
​
While that article focused on how a monopoly allows you to increase your prices unchecked, this article will focus on how a company like Mylan initially achieved said monopoly status.

The Pharmaceutical Lobby is yuge! The top twenty pharmaceutical companies and their two trade groups, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) and Biotechnology Industry Organization, lobbied on 1,600 pieces of legislation between 1998 and 2004. According to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, pharmaceutical companies spent $900 million on lobbying between 1998 and 2005, more than any other industry.

President Barack Obama signs the School Access to Emergency Epinephrine Act (H.R. 2094) in the Oval Office of the White House on November 13, 2013

"In order to make money, you have to spend money" -Every Lobbyist Ever

While Lobbying in and of itself is not illegal, it's effects on the free market can be damning. A recent commenter wanted more information on what exactly the FDA did to assist Mylan in achieving monopoly status.

First we have to follow the money. We start when Mylan began pouring money into lobbying efforts and then look to pinpoint what effects they achieved.

OpenSecrets.org is a primary repository to track campaign contributions to elected officials and candidates, companies, labor unions, and other organizations that spend billions of dollars each year to lobby Congress and federal agencies. Check out Mylan's page here.

​In 2007 the Mylan bought the rights to EpiPen, so we'll start there. Though it might be coincidental, their primary lobbying efforts began after the acquisition of Epipen, a four-fold increase from 2007-2008.

Mylan's primary efforts went to bills such as:

H.R.1706 Protecting Consumer Access to Generic Drugs Act of 2009

H.R.573 To amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to prohibit the marketing of authorized generic drugs.

S.501 Fair Prescription Drug Competition Act

These sound GREAT! They are literally pouring millions into trying to get competition from generic companies!

Well, not exactly. A deeper look into these bills reveals that it made it even harder for generics to compete. The rules that Mylan lobbied for included the requirement that all Epipens be sold in packs of two, vice one. This expanded the volume of goods sold.

A rule was inserted that required Epipens be prescribed for at-risk patients, not just those with confirmed allergies. This expanded the number of consumers to which the product could be marketed to.

Rules were inserted which required public schools to maintain a stock of Epipens on hand, again, creating a market nationwide where it did not exist. No marketing or sales department necessary. Generics not approved by the FDA were not an approved item for school usage, thus preserving a monopoly throughout school districts nationwide.

In 2013 the government passed a law giving block grants to the states to pay for the required stock in public schools. This effectively passed on all the costs of the previous rules to the taxpayers. Keep in mind, this is quite costly as the EpiPen only has a shelf life of about 12 months and must be replaced quite often.

Epinephrine is extremely cheap—just a few cents per dose. The complications come from producing the easy auto-injecting devices. Mylan “owns” their auto-injector device design, so competitors must find work-arounds in their devices to deliver the epinephrine into the patient’s body. This task, coupled with the tangled mess of FDA red tape, has proven to be difficult for would-be EpiPen competitors. It’s like expecting somebody to come up with a new way to play baseball without bases, balls, gloves, or bats, but still getting the game approved by the MLB as a baseball game substitute.

So why can't competitors compete? They've tried but the FDA red tape is a true obstacle. In March 2016, Fierce Pharma reported "FDA swats down Teva's EpiPen copy, putting Mylan in cruise control". Teva won't now be able to appeal and relaunch until 2017.

The Pharmacy Times reported in 2010 that there were 3 brands of epinephrine auto-injectors are available on the market—EpiPen Auto-Injector, Adrenaclick, and Twinject.

​Adrenaclick, Twinject, and the authorized generic to Adrenaclick have an FDA Orange Book rating of “BX,” indicating that insufficient evidence exists to determine therapeutic equivalence. This rating indicates that these epinephrine auto-injector products are not therapeutically equivalent to each other. For example, the other products should not be substituted and dispensed when EpiPen Auto-Injector is prescribed, unless the prescriber is consulted and agrees to change the prescription.

As a liberty-minded person, I believe that you can charge whatever you want for your product and for the fruits of your labor. But that assumes there is a free-market where a competitor can come along with market efficiencies and increased value and convenience for the customer and undercut you. The rest of this post is provided as information and without editorial.

Proxy filings show that from 2007 to 2015, Mylan CEO Heather Bresch's total compensation went from $2,453,456 to $18,931,068, a 671 percent increase. During the same period, the company raised EpiPen prices, with the average wholesale price going from $56.64 to $317.82, a 461 percent increase, according to data provided by Connecture.

"If you look at the facts here, when Mylan controls 85 percent of the market, to quote Bloomberg News, and they had this monopoly power drop in their laps and they went for it - that's what I see," she says. "They say they've made some improvements, but there's no way their improvements should be five times more the value of the item itself."

mORE FROM lIBERTYlol:

Remember when government regulations and cronyism continually degraded our system but everyone blamed unchecked capitalism and pushed for more regulation and larger government in response? Good times.

A recent report from The Libertarian Republic reveals an increasing cost to Epipens. An EpiPen is an injection containing epinephrine, a chemical that narrows blood vessels and opens airways in the lungs. These effects can reverse severe low blood pressure, wheezing, severe skin itching, hives, and other symptoms of an allergic reaction. Needless to say, these are commonly found (and legislation has been passed requiring their presence) in schools.

​The costs are going through the roof and if you're economically literate when the ignorant claim "greedy capitalism", you already suspect government meddling. You wouldn't be wrong.

​While the FDA might have had a role in Upton Sinclair's meat-packing travesty of the early 1900's, entrepreneurs today know that killing and poisoning their customers isn't the path to profits.

​ From the article:The news has once again rolled around that the EpiPen, a specific brand of epinephrine auto-injector, has risen in price astronomically – far beyond the normal rate of inflation. Most recently, the company behind the EpiPen, Mylan, hasreportedlyraised their price from $100 to $500 per pack – right when school is about to start. Naturally, this has made things more difficult for working class parents to acquire the item by their own means, and caused outcry (especially in liberal media) about how once again this is an example of “runaway capitalism” at work where greed is allowed and exploitation is real.

After further review, they've determined that the FDA regulations have actually decreased competition which CREATED the same monopoly that allows Mylan the opportunity to raise their prices.

For one thing, Mylan holds a patent on a type of design that meetsspecific legal requirementshoisted upon schools for auto-injectors. Mylan therefore exploits this. Also, the FDA isreportedlybarring competing companies that do manage to meet the same technical requirements by recalling their offerings based on higher standards than set for EpiPen, or by asking them to undergo more arbitrary testing before true consideration is offered.

Insert cronyism here. Most members of the decision-making board of the FDA are huge stockholders in multiple big pharmaceutical companies. This is a blatant conflict of interest. Any person or entity who benefits financially from the profits of a particular industry should never be allowed to hold a position which exercises regulatory control over that same industry. It should be highly illegal. It probably already is and just isn't being enforced.

At this point, Big Pharma enjoys a government enforced monopoly. While new drugs should be verified, the fact that it costs an average of $802 million and over 7.5 years before your drug is brought to market and you make your first sale is proof that there are significant barriers to entry created by the government.​

From Encyclopedia.com:
​It would not stretch matters to say that the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 (P.L. 59-384, 34 Stat. 768), also known as the Wiley Act, stands as the most consequential regulatory statute in the history of the United States. The act not only gave unprecedented new regulatory powers to the federal government, it also empowered a bureau that evolved into today's Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The legacy of the 1906 act includes federal regulatory authority over one-quarter of gross domestic product, and includes market gatekeeping power over human and animal drugs, foods and preservatives, medical devices, biologics and vaccines. Other statutes (such as the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, the Sherman and Clayton antitrust laws, and the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914) have received more study, but the Pure Food and Drug Act has had the longest-lasting and most widespread economic, political, and institutional impact.

​Today, the FDA regulates $1 trillion worth of products a year. Could the FDA reduce it's regulations and cut it's budget and market effect by 50%? I think so. To find out more about the FDA's charter, check out there page here.

Why Luxury TVs Are Affordable when Basic Health Care Is Not

Imagine this. You are feeling under the weather. You pull out your smartphone and click the Rx app. A nurse arrives in 20 minutes at your home. He gives you a blood test and recommends to the doctor that she prescribe a treatment. It is sent to the CVS down the street, which delivers it to your door in 20 minutes. The entire event costs $20.

Sounds nuts? Not so much. Not if health care were a competitive industry. As it is, medical care prices are up 105% in the last 20 years. This contrasts with the television industry, which is selling products that have fallen 96% in the same period.

Take a look at this chart assembled by AEI. It reveals two important points. First, there is no such thing as an aggregate price level, or, rather what we call the price level is a statistical fiction. Second, it shows that competitive industries offer goods and services that are falling in price due to market pressure. In contrast monopolized industries can extract ever higher rents from people based on restriction.

Consider each product or service shown. College is heavily subsidized, regulated, and exclusionary, and the costs are soaring. The textbook industry is hobbled by extreme copyright regulation, and can depend on captive buyers. Childcare is one of the most regulated industries in the country. Not just anyone can enter. Every aspect of childcare provision is controlled by the state.

On the other hand, software, wireless service, toys and and TVs (see: free trade) exist in relatively freer market settings. The price pressure is down.

It's not that complicated, folks. If you want good services, good products, innovative ideas, and low prices, you need competitive markets. The more you control, the higher the prices and the worse the results.

It delves into the good and bad of the Trump campaign and platform and outlines a more consistent way forward based on free markets, fiscal rectitude, sound money, constitutional liberty, non-intervention abroad, minimalist government at home and decentralized political rule.

Here's a great list of actual deals that the next President, whoever it is, should immediately negotiate:

Ten Great Deals For The Donald
If Donald Trump is elected, eschews a law and order crusade and does not capitulate to the destructive policies of the Wall Street/Washington/bicoastal establishment, there is a way forward. The political outlaw who considers himself to be the world’s greatest deal-maker would need to do just that.

To wit, a President Trump determined to rid the nation of its mutant regime of Bubble Finance at home and failed interventionism abroad would need to make Ten Great Deals.

A Peace Deal with Putin for dismantlement of NATO, cooperation in the middle east, strangulation of ISIS by the Shiite Crescent and a comprehensive worldwide agreement to end the arms trade and pave the way for general disarmament.

A Jobs Deal based on slashing taxes on business and workers and replacing them with taxes on consumption and imports.

A Sound Money Deal to repeal Humphrey-Hawkins, end the Fed’s war on savers and cash, abolish the FOMC and limit the Fed’s remit to passively providing liquidity at a penalty spread over market interest rates based on sound commercial collateral.

A Glass-Steagall Deal to break up the giant financial conglomerates, limit the Fed’s liquidity window to “narrow banks” which only take deposits and make loans and deny deposit insurance to any banking institution involved in Wall Street trading, derivatives and other forms of financial gambling.

A Federalist Deal to turn back most of Washington’s domestic grant and welfare programs to the states and localities in return for a mega-block grant with a 30-year phase-out.
​
A Regulatory Deal based on an absolute 4-year freeze on every single pending regulation, and then subjecting every existing statute to strict cost-benefit rules thereafter.

A Liberty Deal to get Washington out of the war on drugs, criminal law enforcement and regulation of private conduct and morality.

A Health Care Deal based on the repeal of Obamacare and tax preferences for employer insurance plans and their replacement with wide-open provider competition, consumer choice and individual health tax credits.

A Fiscal Deal to slash post-disarmament defense spending, devolve education and other domestic programs to local government and to clawback unearned social security/medicare entitlements benefits from the affluent elderly.

And a Governance Deal to amend the constitution to rescind Citizens United, impose term limits and establish public finance of all Federal elections.

More from LibertyLOL:

He discusses why Seth Godin's book All Marketers are Liars is a must read for any entrepreneur, business owner or anyone crafting a message about their company, brand or product. Check out the full stream at the end to see how he shows this evidence by politicians in general and Hillary Clinton's campaign specifically (She's promising free broadband to all citizens).

​Check it out here:

Seth Godinis the author of eighteen international bestsellers that have been translated into over 35 languages, and have changed the way people think about marketing and work. For a long time, Unleashing the Ideavirus was the most popular ebook ever published, and Purple Cow is the bestselling marketing book of the decade.

His book, Tribes, was a nationwide bestseller, appearing on the Amazon, New York Times, BusinessWeek and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists. It's about the most powerful form of marketing--leadership--and how anyone can now become a leader, creating movements that matter.

His book Linchpin came out in 2008 and was the fastest selling book of his career. Linchpin challenges you to stand up, do work that matters and race to the top instead of the bottom. More than that, though, the book outlines a massive change in our economy, a fundamental shift in what it means to have a job.

Since Linchpin, Godin has published two more books, Poke the Box and We Are All Weird, through his Domino Project. He followed these with The Icarus Deception via Kickstarter, which reached its goal in less than three hours. Joined by Watcha Gonna Do With That Duck and V is for Vulnerable, those books are now widely available. In late 2014, he announced his latest, What To Do When It's Your Turn, sold directly from his website.

In addition to his writing and speaking, Seth was founder and CEO of Squidoo.com,. His blog (find it by typing "seth" into Google) is the most popular marketing blog in the world. Before his work as a writer and blogger, Godin was Vice President of Direct Marketing at Yahoo!, a job he got after selling them his pioneering 1990s online startup, Yoyodyne.

You can find every single possible detail that anyone could ever want to know at sethgodin.com

More from LibertyLOL:

Bernie Sanders, who just made headlines for buying his third house for $600,000, refused to comment when a Univision reporter asked for his thoughts on Venezuela.

For a short time, Venezuela -- now a miserable #176 out of 178 countries in the Economic Freedom of the World Index -- was all the rage among leftist journalists and academics.

Columnist David Sirota wrote an article for Salon called "Hugo Chavez's Economic Miracle," in which he chided free-marketeers for their dogmatism, and for refusing to acknowledge the clear merits of Venezuela's system.

Haven't heard much from ol' Dave lately.

Via Target Liberty, here's a depiction of the GDP figures in Venezuela and South Korea (for reference).

Oh, but we support the Scandinavian model of socialism, say your friends.

Later this month I'll be speaking on the show to Sweden's Dr. Nima Sanandaji, author of the forthcoming (August 23) book Debunking Utopia: Exposing the Myth of Nordic Socialism.

That will be fun.

Meanwhile, my friend Bob Murphy, the brilliant economist, just finished his course on the history of economic thought for Tom Wood's Liberty Classroom. He covers Karl Marx, the source of all this trouble. But he also covers lots of good guys, and helps us understand economics better by tracing out where the good ideas came from, and why the bad ideas were wrong.

It's course #17. Members are downloading it like crazy. As the tagline says, it's the history and economics they didn't teach you.

Take 20 smackers off one of our annual memberships with coupon code SMASH (all caps), or 100 smackers off a lifetime membership with code MASTERY (all caps).

Recall Ludwig von Mises' warning:

Everyone, in his own interests, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle. No one can stand aside with unconcern: the interests of everyone hang on the result. Whether he chooses or not, every man is drawn into the great historical struggle, the decisive battle into which our epoch has plunged us.

Are you a member of Liberty.me? Why not? It's marketed as The Global Liberty Community!

​They have tons of articles, podcasts, discussion boards, a marketcenter, and, maybe best of all, an awesome library of liberty-minded resources.

​One such resource is a free 19-page e-book titled "Reclaim your privacy: 5 Things you can do right now" written by by Bill Rounds, Esq. & Trace Mayer, JD. It's a pretty solid read.
​
​From the introduction "In this guide, we present information that, no matter where you are on your journey toward privacy—unless you’re Jason Bourne—you will find useful and actionable. These five areas are not the only categories that require diligence, but they are areas in which a lack of privacy is pervasive and must be addressed in order to maintain privacy and security."